


what to do when your cousin is halfborn

by sanderidge



Category: Eldemore
Genre: Gen, but i dont! know! what! im! doing!, but i need to figure out who these people are, haha i don't know what im doing, how does one "post", i really want to write more for this fandom!, im screeching do i even add tags for my characters, this is terrifying
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-24
Updated: 2017-05-24
Packaged: 2018-11-04 07:18:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10986108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanderidge/pseuds/sanderidge
Summary: his name is Toren and she’s not sure if he’s really a person.





	what to do when your cousin is halfborn

_step one, don’t panic._

His name is Toren and she’s not sure if he’s really a person. She’s seven, and he looks older, although her - the elvian who says she’s her aunt - her aunt says he’s six and a half. Livi hides behind her mother, just the way that her tiny cousin is hiding behind his elvian mother’s leg, and when their eyes meet - green and gold and mismatched eyes - she’s scared of him. Almost as much as she’s scared of his mom.

He’s like a tiny version of her graceful antlers, and her silk-robe dress, and her soft green eyes: he’s got tiny little antler horns and pretty little fawn spots on his cheeks, white hair and startling green and gold eyes and they look almost like hers. His eyes are the only thing that makes him her cousin.

She’s not sure if he’s really a person because all her life she’s been taught to stay away from anyone without bonds and without human eyes or ears, without a human skin. Her uncle had always told her anyone not human was a devil. But Toren has the human face, and the human ears, and there isn’t anything scary in his eyes. But he has antlers and fawn spots and white hair.

Livi puzzles over this until her mother pulls her gently away from the safety of her skirt and tells her he’s a child, just like you, and then she decides she can like him. She meets his eyes with a shy little smile and holds out her hand to go play and when he looks up with a matching, maybe shyer, smile she decides having a cousin will be okay.

_step two, panic._

Not all of her friends like him. In fact, none of them do - none of them whose mothers also do, anyway, and Livi discovers this when she’s maybe eight. Sometimes when she’s outside playing with him tagging along, a white-haired shadow, no one will be outside to play with her. Or everyone up the street will scatter, suddenly, and glance over their shoulders with scared eyes.

She knows why, of course. Sees the angry hard faces of the other parents on the street. Sees the way they look at Toren and how they pull their curtains shut and if she’s sneaky, she can see the way they look at her.

She cries, twice. Her mother catches her shrieking into her pillow and sits by her and explains, gently, that some people won’t like Toren because of what he is. Because of what his mother is. Because of what his blood makes him. She doesn’t _care_ , of course, because she wants her friends and not just her stupid cousin. Not just her halfborn family, but her _friends_.

Her mother is patient, but the third time she’s about to throw a fit her mother ‘accidentally’ guides her to Toren’s room and lets her see how he cries silently about something he didn’t ask to be, and then she promises herself to never ever throw a fit like that again.

_(step two and a half, wonder.)_

He’s not always there until she’s sixteen and he’s fifteen. In the betweens Toren and his mother move out of the attic, so she forgets about him, and she plays with her friends and learns how to slip things from people’s pockets and purses. In the betweens she meets a sea serval named Ryn who helps her find good marks and together they find a nest of runes hidden in the space between the attic and the roof. In the betweens she tries to pretend her uncle is not terrifying and that she doesn’t care she doesn’t know who her dad is. In the betweens she goes on with her own life, and it’s almost like she doesn’t have a half-elvian cousin that comes and hides in their house for months, sometimes.

While Toren is there, she can’t forget about him at all. Not that he’s not forgettable while he’s there, because he is - he’s quiet, and has a way of moving that makes you ignore him being nearby at all. His elvian blood gives him a sort of grace that she envies, too, but other than that he’s easy to not notice.

But he’s so quiet, and he’s so polite, and he sits shut up in his attic room all day while his mother tries to help hers with the sewing. Livi almost pities him, even though none of her friends will like her for him, and besides if she keeps ignoring him she’ll feel bad about it.

So she takes him out onto the streets and teaches him how to look at people’s pockets. How to tell when someone just pities you and how to get someone’s attention without calling it to yourself. How to smile, kind of, because this doesn’t seem to be something that comes naturally to him. And it’s not that bad sharing her street life with him. It’s really not that different from usual.

And she wonders why she ever thought he wasn’t a person.

_step three, be friends._

When Toren and his mother move in for good, things change. They don’t half-resent each other quite as much after that. There’s some kind of unspoken promise - that they will stick together, because they’re the only ones their age that will be near each other, now, anyway. In their time between wandering the streets of Silverport Toren teaches Livi how to read, and how to know when people hate you, and when to stay away from someone who looks like they’re going to hurt you. Livi teaches him how to run like a shadow, close to the buildings, and how to glance at the ground so you’ll always be facing forwards but never slip.

They grow up together for maybe half a year before his father realizes there’s even an extra pair of people in the house for good. Livi’s always avoided her uncle - he reeks like the sailors, and talks like them, and once her mother told her he was one once and to never ever be near him when he’s upset - that uncle, who is Toren’s dad, decides one day that he hates Toren. And Toren and his mother should leave.

To Livi, it’s very simple. Toren is her best friend, so if he goes somewhere, she goes with him. To Toren, it’s very simple. They weren’t even wanted here anyway, so if this man orders him and his mother out, he goes. To anyone else, maybe, things are more complicated.

But to them it’s as easy as packing up, and scooping up their creature companions, and setting out onto the road that leads out of Silverport at dawn.

_step four, survive._

**Author's Note:**

> gosh that was frightening please tell me if I am doing anything wrong. or right. or anything really


End file.
